Sunday, 26 February 2012

My head in the clouds...

I've not a lot to show and tell this week. I've finished the first module on my Creative Quiltmaking course but I don't think the next one will be completed so quickly. However I have been trying a few things out in anticipation and here are a couple of spreads in my A2 book in which I am recording progress in all things textile, and an A5 book in which I am recording colour notes, trying to build up a resource of colour schemes that I see in magazines etc.

I have been working on a motif from an old key which as been with me a long time. I made a couple of printing blocks from foam sheet stuck onto scraps of mount board using photo-mount spray. They are fairly robust and will work well with acrylic paint. I used Stazon ink for thy key print.

But mainly I have been spending time reading this week two stories at once, which is very unusual for me. The first is Stephen Kelman's Pigeon English.

Not only was Stephen Kelman in my husband's tutor group when he taught on the Marsh Farm estate in Luton, he also taught Stephen's wife. There are some nice references to the local area although the story is set in London. We contacted Stephen to offer him congratulations when he was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and had a lovely reply to our e mail. It is a humorous but poignant tale which has had me laughing out loud. But before I finished reading it, this arrived ...

We had watched the TV series on Sky Atlantic and I was totally captivated by it and had to have the book. The series started again last Friday, so if you have Sky A - I highly recommend it. We cannot find anyone else who watched it. The minute I picked it up I had to start reading. It is set in Australia between the 40's and 60's and is about two families, the Lambs and the Pickles sharing a house on Cloud Street, but it is so much more. Time Out magazine says "Imagine Neighbours being taken over by the writing team of John Steinbeck and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and you'll be getting close to the heart of this tale."

The language is lyrical, hilarious and earthy, every character loveable, there is a river is running through the pages and there is the house which holds them all together. I hope I've made you want to read it. I'm off now to do a bit of reading myself, but which one will it be?

9 comments:

Hi Jill, interesting what you read: you have me there .... ;-), might start looking for it !Always love your sketchbook pages.(I like it too, but I don't think I have the stamina to keep it up every day ..... :-( !)I must try those Inktense pencils: I have a small box, but I want to try them on cotton too. Hope the ink doesn't run too much when wet ....

Hi Jill, I really must make the effort to start a journal for the purposes of recording ideas and samples. I like the idea of recording colour schemes too. I'm reading two books at the moment but I tend mainly to read crime and thrillers though I do try to read other stuff. The two I'm reading at the moment are 'Fallen' by Karin Slaughter and 'The Moonstone' by Wilkie Collins. The reason I'm reading two is because only one is on my Kindle the other is on the Kindle app on my laptop and though you can usually sync the 2, for some reason I can't download 'Fallen' onto the Kindle.Anne x

One of the things I promised myself for this year was to read more ..... I seem to be managing that on the reference book front, but not doing too much on the fiction side of things, these recommendations might just kick start things............

Lovely to see your work books, colour just bursting out of them as usual! Always a pleasure to view......

My Etsy Shop

The Walled Garden Project

"Enter Here"

About Me

I have retired from teaching and started my third age with studying photography with the Open College of Art - this opened up the world of the internet and blogging. I am presently studying for my C&G in Creative Quilt Making.